Mintimer Shaimiev considers last year productive for Tatarstan

"This year we managed to realize all planned social programs and maintained production growth, we had a record agricultural harvest", M.Shaimiev told the Interfax. In his opinion, the main achievement of 2001 is that the republic could keep political stability, interethnic peace and solidarity despite the world events.

At the same time M.Shaimiev is "worried" of whether it will be possible to provide the progress of the republic in the new year. "The fact is that Tatarstan strongly depends on the conjuncture of world oil and petrochemical prices", he explained.

The President of Tatarstan noted that the last year "Russia as a state became more integrate and explicable". As he said, the federal authorities and Russian President's administration were mostly engaged in forming power vertical through regulating regional statutes and regional power structures. "The coming year, I think, should be marked by a similar work at the federal level. It is an urgent problem as today much is to be improved in the activity of federal authorities themselves".

M.Shaimiev thinks there is an actual necessity for practical realization of issues discussed at the level of the State Council. "It is very important that the discussed problems get the form of concrete decisions", he emphasized.

M.Shaimiev also pointed out that by the end of 2002 Russia will feel "pre-election breath of society", because the next parliamentary elections will pass in 2003. "It is extremely important that both the country and power structures approach these elections becoming more mature than before. We would like all shortcomings of the transition period to be reduced to a minimum at the forthcoming parliamentary elections," concluded M.Shaimiev.